*If you don't wish to read Pokemon v Human / Human v Pokemon violence, and about the death/potential death of Pokemon in these acts, I suggest you skip where the -SKIP- is, and continue reading there. I know some people don't like to see the furry creatures being harmed like that, and such scenes where Janine takes action like this will be quite rare, this ain't an ACE fic after all.*
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Walking along the route, Janine was practically a bobblehead as she looked to and fro in the hopes of just being lucky enough to spot a Roselia, even if she weren't to catch it - an attempt to find a Roselia she would catch from it would be perfect!
Alas, like the route before, this one seemed quite sparse of Pokemon. A few flying types resting in trees, a bubbling pond, a Poochyena running past… A sinking feeling began to fill her as she tracked the Poochyena. 'Strange… what I looked at said there shouldn't be Poochyena on this route, and in the games there was, but only in Emerald, and in Emerald…'
Surely she couldn't be that unlucky, right? 'I mean, in Emerald, Roselia was trade only, but I have evidence and proof they exist on this route, and there's no real reason you'd even remove them from a nice casual route like this. Roselia help the flowers, cleans water, and mellows out the harsher scents caused by flora and fauna! It's perfect for a route leading to a contest hall.'
Yet, even with that logic, Janine both by training, and the instincts as a Reincarnator who was always expecting the world to fuck with her, couldn't quite push down the worry. 'Worst case scenario, I catch a Poochyena. It's fine, even if I'd REALLY like to be able to train a Roselia as my 2nd Pokemon.'
Doing her best to shake off the worry, Janine continued down the path a bit more, before stopping. To the right of her was a field of flowers that slowly merged into the forest beyond it. Yet… 'That's not a good sign.' Looking at the flowers, Janine could make out that some of them were chewed on, some stems weren't straight, colors weren't as vibrant, and smells were harsher. If Roselias had been here recently, none of this would be the case. Not only were they fierce protector of flowers, but they also were quite adept at fixing them up, and the smell situation she had already thought of…
'The League wouldn't just remove them like this. From what I know, the flowers are a big draw for tourism to both Mauville and Verdantuff outside of the Gym and Contest. Their perfection is a big thing. Not to mention they're hailed as the greatest flowers in the region.' A hint of worry flashed through her eyes, not just at the thought of Roselia being impossible to catch now, but also at the prospect of something being wrong.
While she wasn't the most… morale of people when it came to humanity due to her upraising, conversely being surrounded by kind, caring, and funloving Pokemon versus the stern, harsh, non-emotive, or completely silent types from Humans growing up in this 2nd life had effected Janine. Eyes narrowing, Janine carefully took her first step into the flower fields. "Spinarak, keep a look out for any strange signs."
His eyes snapping open, he bumped the side of his head against Janine's neck before chittering in affirmation. Slowly, she continued her walk through the flower field, eyes peeled, looking for any signs of Roselia, or at least what had happened to them.
Walking through the flowers, Janine had to hold back her nose from wrinkling as the pungent aroma of so many unchecked different breeds of flowers and flower-like plants mingled. 'Strange. Even if Roselia was gone, other grass Pokemon would have naturally picked up the slack, just like every other route or biome.' If she wasn't so confused and worried, she would have had the time to be amused at her having such a strong reaction to something that would have been quite natural on Earth, a place with no Pokemon. It was one of the many boons of this world, no matter how dark it could get - Pokemon just made nature that little bit better, when they weren't tearing your face off of course.
"Spina!Spinarak!" Pausing as her companion suddenly shouted out, Janine followed his stretched-out leg, and immediately saw what he spotted. A footprint. 'Strange.' Kneeling down when she got closer, Janine carefully studied it. 'Not a shoe print. Not a human footprint either. Canine of some kind. Too big for a Poochyena, maybe a Mightyena? But these claw marks look a bit too short, and the overall foot size is too large…'
"Spinarak!" As she was studying trying to figure out what Pokemon it was, Janine's eyes snapped once more to where Spinarak was pointing, only to stop another set of footprints, still canine, but different. 'Strange, these are a bit smaller, but.' Her eyes widened. Switching between the two footprints that were both canine, but of varying sizes - yet both being too large for a Poochyena a realization struck her. 'The first footprint I was thinking about Poochyena and Mightyena because I saw one, but that's clearly not it. The second one could very well be a Mightyena, and for dog Pokemon in Hoenn that are larger than Mightyena, there could only be one!'
Staring at what she thought was a set of Houndoom and Mightyena footprints, Janine quickly tracked each trail and came to the realization that they were both moving in the same direction. 'A pack? Or two rivaling packs?' Either answer would explain why the famed flowers were untended. Alongside both being Dark-Type Pokemon and the route not seeing major usage due to the off-season. 'Still an assumption, but a somewhat logical one. In that case, if this isn't fixed soon Roselia might actually be nearly eradicated, considering there should be no Roserade in the route, a bunch of Roselia won't be able to deal with a pack of Houndoom and Hondour, and even a regular pack of Mightyena and Poochyena would be dangerous for them because of their aggressive nature.'
It was a time like this when being from a clan and being in a foreign nation sucked. A regular trainer of her skill level would not even worry about going head-first into such a situation, completely confident of their ability to deal with it. 'Damn rules, regulations, and having to do everything by the book AND without exceptions.' A normal trainer would have just gotten an exception, their partner tested, and confirmation that their Type Energy could handle more Pokemon. Then, all of their carry limits would have been removed nice and easy.
Staring into the forest, Janine didn't showcase the struggle on her face. 'Tch. Most of the clan members are only beginning to set up in Hoenn now, we don't have many assets yet, which means I'd have to report it to the Hoenn league if I don't take of it myself.'
Part of sending clan children out late was so they could find situations like this, and gain fame for their clan for taking of it. Bolstering the reputation of that trainer, and their clan. Deep in thought, Spinarak chittered in her ear, and just like that, all the tension and deep thoughts left Janine.
"Haaa… thanks, buddy." 'He's right. What am I worried about? A bunch of Mightyenas or Houndooms taking us out? Baah! Worst case scenario Spinarak just evolves, or I run away. What Ninja is going to get caught by some wild Pokemon in a forest if they aren't immensely powerful? If they were truly immensely powerful, the league Psychics would have noticed the void in the area, so this would indicate each pack or the combined pack hasn't reached the level of where they'd need to send ACE in.'
Straightening up, all hesitation fled from Janine in an instant. "Alright buddy, be on your guard, and get ready to evolve if things go wrong, alright?"
"Spinaraaak!"
Resolve renewed and all hesitation completely gone, Janine took steady yet careful steps forward through the fields, following the tracks the Pokemon had left behind. Passing through the field of flowers and into the forest, Janine completely disappeared from the route, and entered the untamed wilderness…
But one ominous question still lurked in the back of Janine's head, had the Roselia been wiped out already, and what about the Oddish and Seedot that are supposed to be on the route?
—
With the experience of a Park Ranger, and the skill of a Ninja, Janine quickly and quietly crept through the forest, expertly dodging twigs and leaves on the ground. Spinarak silently sat across her head, acting much like a recon unit as he swiveled around looking to and fro, and silently glared at any nearby Pokemon. 'Just as I thought..' Having traveled some bit into the forest, it was only now that the tracks she had been following merged into a mass of other tracks. A few of them were the same size, but most of them were much smaller - clearly the Poochyena and Houndour of the pack. 'So what is that, 3 pairs of Mightyena/Houndoom? That's a moderate-sized pack. Can't tell how many unevolved pairs, but we're looking at something close to 30 Pokemon here, maybe even more if some were trailing behind on the same line.'
While that normally wouldn't be enough to completely eradicate an entire species from a route, when at least six of those Pokemon were fully evolved, they were hyper-aggressive, on top of having a major Type Advantage, well. 'Bad things happen to grass-type Pokemon that are literal flowers in the middle of a forest against Fire-types. Not to mention Roselia can't evolve into their final form without stones, whereas both Poochenya and Hondour could be forced to evolve in such a battle.'
Following the tracks of the pack, Janine's eyes narrowed as they clearly began to become fresher and fresher. The mud around the paw prints was more recently disturbed, with less foliage in the way, on top of remnant radiating heat from the Houndoom. Reaching up to tap Spinarak, in response instantly began to prepare himself, eyes beginning to flicker with a soft blue glow.
As Janine continued to walk, she could feel how Spinarak began to quietly shake from on top of her head with each usage of Agility, and how his legs minutely spasmed from the bolstering effects. With each spasm, she remembered the echoes of his pain through the bond they shared at the start of their initial training sessions for Agility. Each time his muscles tore, and each time he slammed into the wall or another object.
Quickly forcing that to the back of her mind, Janine's focus sharpened as she began to hear barks, yips, roars, and the smell of smoke and flowers. Silently creeping a bit more, Janine reached the edge of a clearing, where in front of her she could spot a massive battle.
Forming a circle, throngs of Mightyena, Houndoom, Poochyena, and Houndours were battling from what she could make out a bunch of Roselia and Nuzleafs, and from what she could vaguely make out, huddling in the very center of the circle were incredibly tiny Budew and Seedots, clearly just mere babes.
'So they are trying to exterminate them for territory.' Lips curling up as the only sign of disgust, Janine's hand slipped inside her backpack and grabbed hold of a leather-wrapped object. Then she waited.
Spinarak shook once more before his grip on her head tightened, and then the few pounds weighing her down that she had been dealing with disappeared from her head as Spinarak moved through the trees.
-THE LINE FOR SKIPPERS-
'30. 29… 15… 5… 1.' Counting down inside of her head, Janine struck as she mentally hit 0. While it was certainly against regulations in registered battles for Trainers to fight Pokemon or each other, out here in the wilds?
It was a dog-eat-dog world, and trainers were nowhere near helpless. Even in the anime people barely even blinked at Ash doing obscene physical feats, yet in this world, where the bond between Pokemon and Trainer gave noticeable benefits to not just Pokemon, but actually the Trainer as well?
Janine didn't even blink as the small dagger she ripped from her bag sliced through the air her body and weapon shuttling directly towards the nearest Houndour. 'To kill like this means one must be prepared to be killed.' It was not the first time she had been forced to experience such a battle and even killing due to clan training, and it was such thoughts that kept her sane and focused in moments like this.
That same training let her not rear back in shock or puke as the blood of what could have been a trusted friend and ally soaked her hands and coated her face.
She was Janine Kurosawa, heiress to the Kurosawa clan, future Gym Leader, and Daughter of Koga - if she could not handle this, how could she handle a future where she might have to kill her own father?
She ignored the pained whimper as her dagger ripped out of the first Houndour, and she launched herself at a Poochyena. She fell into the thrum of battle, even as her Spinarak seemed to just appear mid-air a Gatling gun worth of string shots spewing from his mouth, before he landed on a Mightyena and his small, yet mighty mandibles ripped clean into it.
While this was not 'just another day', for once when she participated in a battle like this, she did not feel the dread of not knowing whether she was doing the right thing, whether the clan was making her fight the wrong side. Instead, all Janine felt was peace as she felt how the tiny baby Pokemon began to cheer up, and how the Nuzleaf and Roselia visibly slackened in relief as the pressure on them was being relieved. Meanwhile, the Dark-Type energies only continue to churn with violent intent among the pack of Dog Pokemon.
Blood splattered and a lance of pain ran up her spine as a Poochyena made contact on her leg with a bite. If she had been a Pokemon, Janine would not have felt it, and the Poochyena wouldn't have been even able to break her skin with the sheer difference in their strength, but alas. She was a mere human.
Her dagger came down in response, her face only slightly twitching as the teeth imbued with Dark-Type energy sunk in. Her other hand barely lashed out in time with a half-formed bundle of Poison-Type energy to slam into a charging Hondour, a grunt escaping from her as that same arm was point-blank blasted with ember.
She continued on, limp only barely noticeable, and the slight slowness in her other arm was mostly irrelevant.
Yet, wounds began to gather across her frame as she continued to wade to fight the pack. But, even as the wounds gathered and she continued to fight, things began to look up more and more. The Roselia and Nuzleaf began to go on the offensive, exhausted, but burning with the fires of righteous wrath, and the glory of knowing their children would survive this day.
Janine did not know if it was seconds, minutes, or even an hour later - when the battle finally ended. Pokemon bodies littered the ground, with just as many hurried tracks leading out and back into the forest, but - she was in no place to track them down right now.
Letting out a sigh, she wearily tucked her dagger back into its place. 'What a fucking entrance to Hoenn.' Pain throbbing across her body, she soldiered on, and surveyed the area, distantly spotting her Spinarak hopping off of one last Houndour as he made his way towards her. 'He seems fine.' Although scorch marks and dents littered his carapace, she felt assured in the fact that she only spotted tiny flecks of purple blood across his body.
-YOU SHOULD BE FINE TO RETURN READING-
A few seconds later he was next to Janine, looking at her as a worried chittering noise escaped from him. "I'm fine buddy, just don't jump up onto me right now."
His eyes went wide, causing Janine to let out a huff. "No, I'm not dying. One of them just managed to get my shoulder. Don't start exaggerating things."
Turning away from him, she looked towards the Nuzleaf and Roselia who were at this point completely ignoring her - in favor of worriedly tending to their injured and fallen comrades or calming down the babies.
Gingerly reaching around in her pack, she pulled out a few Potions. "Excuse me? I have a few Potions."
One of the Roselia split off from their group and while still quite hesitant, practically had tears in their eyes. "Rose? Elia?"
Struggling to parse through the words, Janine finally nodded. "It's no problem, and yeah - I have enough for a couple dozen uses." The Roselia visibly brightened up, their flower-like hands that had wilted seemingly gaining some vibrancy. "Selia! Selia! Roseliaaaa~"
There were some cheers and cries from the rest of the Pokemon, causing a smile to briefly form on Janine's face. "Now then, what you have to do to use a potion is…"
—
Sometime later, Janine was sitting on the ground lying against a rock while a bunch of Budew and Seedot rested in her lap. Letting out an exhausted sigh, her hands that had been flickering with purple and black energies carefully stopped gently petting the baby Pokemon, and fell to her side.
Sitting on top of a rock, her Spinarak had a massive pout on his face as he childishly glared at the sleeping Pokemon. Rolling her eyes at him, Janine went to close her own, only to pause as a bruised-up Nuzleaf hesitantly walked into her view. Barely three feet tall, the Pokemon worried his hands before pointing into the distance, where she vaguely spotted through the darkness of the evening a quite massive Nuzleaf, well, as massive as a Nuzleaf could get, pacing back and forth.
Looking back towards the much smaller Nuzleaf, Janine flashed a soothing smile across her face, before carefully shifting the baby Pokemon onto the ground, before ever-so-carefully standing up.
Luckily - they didn't wake up. Patting the worried Nuzleaf on the shoulder and ignoring the aching pain that shot across her own as she did, Janine stepped past him and towards the still-pacing Pokemon. 'These wounds are going to take a few days to heal.' Luckily, Pokemon AND Humans healed quite rapidly. In other moments she would perhaps let herself fall into memories, perhaps of the time she broke her leg, and being surprised when only a week later it was practically perfect, but instead - she was totally focused on the Nuzleaf she was approaching.
Getting into quiet talking range, Janine asked, "Excuse me? Is there something I can help with?" The Nuzleaf paused in his pacing and turned towards her, a hesitant look on his face, before slowly shaking his head no.
"Nuz-leaf. Nuz-nuz!" The Pokemon worriedly ran his hands through the one leaf on his head in stress, and Janine barely managed to parse through his words. 'I see… So his… wife? Mate? Pokemon terms are weird. Anyways, his partner while a Potion stopped her from dying, lost one of her arms, and the other is now lame.' Squinting her eyes Janine quickly ran through a few possibilities. While ditto-cell transplants were quite advanced, that was mostly for humans.
A Full Restore combined with the technology and more privatized medicine Nurse Joys in major cities had access to could potentially heal a lame limb, but a missing one was still out of their reach.
There was really only one possibility to heal this Nuzleaf's partner, outside of the act of a Legendary, or perhaps a Champion-ranked Pokemon focused on healing. The number of which were incredibly few. For a brief moment, she grappled with herself - before, "Is your partner a Roselia?"
He focused in on her, hope blooming across his face. "Nuz! Nuzleaf! Leaf! Nuz!" Through his rapid-fire words, Janine managed to get a picture of what had happened finally, and why these two separate Pokemon groups seemed so entwined - he and his partner were the Alphas of each of these packs, and so when they got together… well, it was natural what happened next.
With only another brief moment of hesitation, Janine finally fished out a stone from her pocket. "This should fix her. Just… if you give it to her, know that if she's spotted the league will capture her."
Without any thought, the Nuzleaf took it from her hands, and with a cry of thanks, rushed off. 'Well, there goes 10,000 Poke Dollars.' Pushing off the crude thought, Janine quietly turned around and walked back, before scooping up the baby Pokemon and sitting back down. 'Oh well. I can always get another, what person could watch a Pokemon that was injured defending their family when they could help?'
Besides! Janine had decided against immediately evolving her future Roselia anyway. Still, when she spotted a white light in the distance that gradually got brighter and brighter, she couldn't help but let out a sigh, and close her eyes.
She quickly fell asleep, the exhaustion of the day's events, turbulent emotions, her injuries, and such a vast expenditure of Type Energy weighing down on her.
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Janine didn't see it as his eyes grew soft and approving as the light of Evolution faded away and she fell into a slumber. Nor did she feel when he quickly dragged her phone out of her bag, before sending a quick picture of her asleep with the hatchlings on her lap, before quickly deleting the message…
Soft happy chittering rustled up his mandibles before he placed himself back onto his rock and closed his eyes. 'If only my foolish trainer could act like this with the Clan Leader. Mother and I never act like this with each other.' Then again, Humans were illogical - this was the first thing Mother had taught him. His trainer thought the Leader was evil for joining Those-That-Slithered-in-The-Dark, but what if it was the only way to keep the clan safe?
Shaking his head in exasperation at the silliness of his trainer and humans, Spinarak swiftly fell into a light sleep, ready to spring into action at any sign of danger. Really though, did his trainer HAVE to insist on fighting? She always did this…